Monday, June 26, 2017

Looks like I may be able to keep my TiVo working in Australia after October, using a croud-sourced alternative Electronic Program Guide (EPG).

The TiVo Personal Video Recorder (PVR) service is shutting down in Australia, 31 October 2017. As an owner of a Series 3 TiVo I have been offered $100 off the price of a Fetch TV box. However, the reviews I have read of the Fetch have been mixed: in particular TiVo users miss some of the features they are accustomed to.The actual TiVo hardware will continue to work after October, the problem is the lack of an EPG. There was a grass roots movement OzTiVo, which provided an alternative EPG for older Series 1 TiVos (which were never officially supported in Australia). There is discussion on Whirlpool of supporting Series TiVos, after October 2017.

The approach Darren King suggests, is to register for the TiVo swap-out, but not hand over your TiVo until late October, to see if the grass roots project is a success.

Friday, June 23, 2017

In "Three charts on: the NBN and Australia’s digital divide" (The Conversation, June 21, 2017), Schram, Baum, Fisher, Harris, Friel and Frereman show that socio-economic disadvantaged areas of Australia have been missing out on the faster fiber National Broadband Network (NBN). These areas get the slower wireless, hybrid fibre or satellite service. Even when location was taken into account (as wireless and satellite are primarily intended for low population densities) the same effect was found. However, why this may be the case: due to deliberate discrimination by NBN Co., an effect of the technology, or the way the existing infrastructure was built, the authors do not mention. Perhaps this will be in the peer reviewed publications of the research to come.

This is not quite the broadband for social good which Roger Clarke and I envisioned in 1994.

This is of interest to me as I help students undertaking start-ups at the Australian National University. Some of these are extra-curricular activities such as the Innovation ACT competition, while others are part of their degree program through ANU Techlauncher.

Unfortunately all the MPs had to go to a division, just they were getting up to speak at the event. Perhaps one new venture could be an electronic voting system for Parliament, so MPs need not be in the chamber. ;-)

Research by Alizadeh and Farid (2017) found that pork-barreling by Australian politicians over the National Broadband Network (NBN)
worked. Voters who received early access to high speed broadband rewarded the party which provided this with their votes:

"An analysis of the voting behaviour in the 2007 and the 2010 Federal
elections shows a pattern in which the ALP held seats were the key
beneficiaries of the early NBN rollout. Moreover, the results suggests
that the Coalition held safe seats were the least likely to receive the
infrastructure. Diverse sub-patterns across the three states of New
South Wales, Queensland, and Victoria have been discussed in details.
However, the overall findings remain that the selection process for the
early NBN rollout was skewed up for potential political gains.

The paper then moves to the second question on whether the targeted
infrastructure provision worked and swung votes for the ALP in the
following 2013 Federal election. The analysis of the voting in the NBN
early rollout areas versus the rest of the country shows a clear
difference. While the ALP experienced an overall heavy negative swing
across the nation and lost the election, the negative shift was highly
mitigated in the NBN early release sites."

From Alizadeh and Farid, 2017.

I suggest the lesson from this is: when proposing tech policy, find some
aspect which offers short term political gain. Making appeals to the
national interest and long term benefit is of little relevance to
politicians aiming to win the next election. So how do we make changes
we think need to be made to Internet policy appealing to voters in the
short term and so therefore appealing to politicians?

On Sunday I attended the play The Clean House by Sarah Ruhl at the New Theatre in Newtown, Sydney. The play begins with someone telling a joke in Portuguese, a long joke. The person telling the joke is clearly enjoying it, but I don't speak Portuguese and so did not get it. The rest of the play was in English, mostly, which I do speak, but I still didn't get what this play was about.

Set mostly in a comfortable apartment of a professional American couple, the play's central character is a Portuguese speaking Brazilian maid, who like telling jokes more than cleaning. She becomes tied up the breakdown of the relationship of the couple. It all becomes a bit silly when one party goes off to Alaska to chop down a tree.

The mix of the surreal and the buttoned-up professionals did not work for me. The cast is clearly having fun, and Alice Livingstone in particular as a frumpy sister with an urge to break out and get a job. However, I don't find comedies about rich people with fantasies of having to work for a living that funny.

Sunday, June 11, 2017

The "Blueprint for the Future: Independent Review into the Future Security of the National Electricity Market" by
Alan Finkel, Karen Moses, Chloe Munro, Terry Effeney and Mary O’Kane has been released by the Australian Government. The 212 page report includes eight pages of recommendations. The report proposes short term regulation requiring energy suppliers and distributors to provide a reserve of generating capacity (dispatchable power). However, the report doesn't address how to do this in a cost effective way. The likely result is that supplying companies will take the opportunity to use this as a reason to further increase prices.

This report is very much focused on the short term issues of reliable electricity supply which are only an inconvenience to the community, but a major political threat to governments. The report fails to adequately address the long term issue of carbon pollution from coal and gas fired power stations which places the prosperity of the nation and the safety of its citizens at risk.

The authors of the report have met their brief, in providing a way for the Australian Government to avoid having to deal with difficult issues of human caused climate change and reliable electricity supply. Instead the industry regulator will be required to introduce short term regulations which will increase the cost of electricity in the short and long term, as well as greatly adding to the cost decades from now, when Australia is forced to take effective action on climate change.

If the aim is to increase the reliability of the electricity supply, then there are some simple low cost ways through modern technology. Modern air-conditioners use electronically controlled motors (so called "inverters"). It would require only a small enhancement to the program controlling the inverters to have them help stabilize the power grid. Australian law could be changed to require all new domestic and industrial air-conditioners permanently connected to the grid to be programmed to help maintain it. This would cost a few dollars per unit and the user would be unlikely to notice the difference. A few times a year the air-conditioner would switch to low power mode for a few minutes to help maintain the grid.

Unfortunately it seems unlikely the Australian Government would feel able to accept Dr Franklin's advice. One hope for the future is that technology will come to the rescue. The continually dropping cost of solar and wind energy, along with options for battery and pumped hydro storage will likely have more influence on energy options than Australian Government policy. Australia will likely achieve a reliable renewable energy system despite, not because of, government policy.

On Thursday I attended a community energy session at EnergyLab hosted by University of Technology Sydney. Speakers from ClearSky, Pingala, and Community Power Agency put the case for a different energy future for Australia, where the community is involved in planning and implementation.

About Me

Canberra, ACT, Australia

Tom Worthington is an independent computer professional, educational design consultant and an Honorary Senior Lecturer in the Research School of Computer Science at the Australian National University.
A Certified Professional member of the Australian Computer Society, in 2015 Tom received a national gold Digital Disruptors Award for "ICT Education" and in 2010 was Canberra ICT Educator of the Year. Tom previously worked on IT policy for the Australian Government and in 1999 he was elected a Fellow of the Australian Computer Society for his contribution to the development of public Internet policy. He is a Past President, Honorary Life Member, Certified Professional and a Certified Computer Professional of the society as well as a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, a voting member of the Association for Computing Machinery and a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
Tom has a Masters of Education (specializing in Distance Education) from Athabasca University, a Graduate Certificate in Higher Education from the Australian National University and a Certificate IV in Training and Assessment from the Canberra Institute of Technology.